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Various excerpts from "The One-Percent Factor: An Eccentric Unicorn's Guide to Touring and Traveling"
The observer who watches someone move about outside of his or her own country will descry what is most fundamental about the traveling process itself. In seeing either a tourist or a traveler, one can learn much about him or her just based on the hows of his or her travel. About the time I was finished with my extensive cruises, I designed a truth of my philosophy of travel that holds its validity true for all cultures and identities: "Show me how you travel, and I'll tell you to where it is that you're traveling." I later expounded upon it to formulate two corollaries: "Tell me how you seek, and I'll tell you what it is that you are seeking," and "Tell me how you teach, and I will tell you what it is that you are teaching." Think not that this last statement applies only to formal educators in formalized institutions. I firmly believe that each of us, each day, each hour, each instant, teaches some lesson to others based on our actions alone. How we live and teach, then, shows exactly what sort of life we are living and teaching. An Australian taxi-driver once told me "After all, anybody can learn, but it truly is an art to be able to teach." Modus operandi is everything. I've seen from encompassing the globe that we truly are all connected here. The more the news seems to point out differences among us, the more determined I am to hold on to the similarities I always have found. This common denominator among all peoples, the level at which we all connect, is what I term the one-percent factor. Its basis is love. The one-percent factor for which we search in all people may take much time and patience, but when we find that small aspect of love, it quickly outshines all other things that we may have previously deemed valuable. Ours is to find this one-percent factor in all people. Indeed, it may be at times as though searching for the stenciled prayer in my grandmother's house after the flood, but, I promise you, it is there. To many, this concept of knowing everyone in one's community is quite foreign. I already mentioned the fact that the waste alone of Americans is far more precious than what most other countries take for granted daily. To be sure, becoming conscious about the environment is crucial to prolonging the benefits of our globe, and organized efforts at recycling, for example, are both honorable and necessary. Amidst these quite valid concerns, however, is the sometimes-disposable culture of the States and other highly-developed countries. Americans are spending far too much time consuming and throwing away. What used to be wonderful pastimes, such as photography, dining, and even sightseeing, all can be purchased, performed, and disposed. From one's touch-tone telephone, one can arrange to have dinner delivered, find out what plays and movies are playing in a city, arrange to have the dog picked-up, groomed, and returned, pay bills and do all necessary banking from both banks and credit card companies, and purchase an airline vacation, all while not having to speak with one human voice. Such technology does not exist yet in many countries. Perhaps that is good. Technology is not vile, but having it supplant the value of people and interacting relationships within any given society is. The importance of people over machines is growing. Above this technology is the human heart, however, and, despite the state of technological advancement in which any given country may find itself, we all have one of those. |
